RIP also to Peter Falk, passed on a week ago at 83. I like his turns in films like The Princess Bride, Wings of Desire & as one of the cabbies in the last stretch of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, but of course he’s immortal as the gabby, unstumpable Lt. Columbo.
I didn’t know until recently, though, that Falk was actually the third actor to play Columbo—after Bert Freed on a 1960 Chevy Mystery episode by Richard Levinson & William Link titled Enough Rope, & then Thomas Mitchell in Levinson & Link’s play Prescription: Murder, which closed before reaching Broadway in 1962:
Falk was my favorite. I hope they have a Colombo marathon on TV, I'll watch them all. There were some terrific guest stars. Who would you choose as his successor for a new Colombo? Vincent Donofrio uses a lot of those same mannerisms. Pris
ReplyDeleteFalk was superb & lovable, & some of the earlier Columbo episodes were cinematically fine, too--Spielberg evenn directed a couple of them. I remember one--don't know if it was a Spielberg or not--where the killer was a chessmaster, & there was a dream sequence with giant chess pieces. Very vivid.
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